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To the Editor:In general, Paypal Multi-Order Shipping was a very reliable tool. You could put in all the label info and print all the labels at once, rather than doing them one at a time. They would go down for an hour or two, maybe once or twice a month.

Last Thursday they went down for hours. When you clicked on Multi Order shipping it would open a new window and then just run endlessly, never going anywhere. I called, Customer Service says clean your cache, change your browser, etc etc, there is no problem. I called Tech Support and they say they have known it is down, they dont know why Customer Service is telling people that. After 8 hours it is fixed. At least eBay put an announcement on about the outage (after a couple hours) and then announced it was fixed.

Saturday it is down again. I don't know when it got fixed since I did not ship on Sunday. No announcements on ebay.

This morning it worked for awhile then locked up. Now it will not open again.

So three times in 6 days they have been down, and they aren't telling anyone why or when it will be fixed.

The only way around it is not to use it, you just have to go back to the old way of printing out labels one at a time. The Post Office hates that because they have to scan every package, the multi order enables them to scan the one sheet with all your labels info on it.

Paypal is the biggest pain in the rear when it comes to shipping labels. I ship 50-60 packages a week. I never use paypal only USPS as I can input the information just as fast as paypal. Who cares if they don't like to have to scan the packages. Unless they are working for free they are being paid to do their job. Which means get out the scanner.

I use click and ship and the mailman picks them up off my porch. If I have first class mail I just put them in a plastic bag with the money and let them stamp them. Not a problem never has been.

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: RicRoe

Wed Aug 26 00:02:23 2009

One of the biggest issues ( and there are many) is the fact that the left hand does not know or will not admit they know what the right hand is doing.

eBay live help will rarely if ever admit there is a technical issue, and will likely tell you to clear cookies, cache etc...and pass off issues as your problem and not something that is being widely experienced.

I have been told by live help that unless or until eBay receives a sufficient number of complaints about the same issue, no ticket for technical investigation is opened. No qualifier was made as to what constitutes a sufficient number of complaints.

So if a small number of users report an issue with incomplete listing display in Firefox, and another small number complain about search result inconsistencies in Firefox, no action is initiated, because Live Help treats the two issues as separate.

The direct result is that Live help now must have numerous reports of identical issues before support tickets are opened.

JD made it public knowledge that he was cutting tech staff and outsourcing many IT functions. In fact, JD has let go many of the more senior in house IT staff who in most cases wrote the original code for much of eBay and understood it better than outside IT people.

So, now that IT work is now outsourced, eBay does not want to run up the bill with the outside third party techs.

At the same time, you have third party IT techs working on issues they neither understand nor care to resolve on a timely basis. There is no sense of urgency, no dedication, everything is patched with a quick fix.

When issues occur, eBay now has inexperienced techs delving into unfamiliar code to fix issues they barely understand.

In the end, you have a wobbly, unstable IT infrastructure, which has rolling glitches and or service outages.

Donahoe & Co want these issues swept under the rug as they do not want the Board of Directors to be aware of the constant issues, regardless of severity.

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: surplusdealdude

Wed Aug 26 06:57:40 2009

An alternative to the Paypal multi-order system is the $35 a month endicia system or the USPS SCAN form, which you can get through usps.com.

Last time I checked, PayPal Multi-Order Shipping isn't even supported for the Mac O/S. Like most eBay functions. So once I stopped using a PC, I also stopped using PayPal to ship and went with Endicia instead. The time savings on no longer having to go to the Post Office to ship International mail made it sooooo worthwhile. And I pay for my postage using my PayPal Debit card as a credit card, so PayPal in essence is paying me for using someone else when I get my cashback bonus. Win-Win!

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: Joyful

Thu Aug 27 09:04:27 2009

One-at-a-time multi-order shipping was also down for a day. I ship not all that many books, mostly by media mail, and Paypal is the only free service I know of for my usage.

So I got to remember what it's like to tape Amazon and Alibris labels to my packages and stand in line at the post office.

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: Ana

Wed Sep 2 21:28:03 2009

I dont know why they cant get their act together. This is driving me crazy! I hate paypal multi order shipping!

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: James

Thu Nov 12 04:36:59 2009

I ship about 50 packages a day. I was using the multiorder shipping tool until it started to fail. Both the PayPal transaction database and the Multiorder Page appear NOT to be INTEGRATED. If I print a label using the shipping button it won't sync with the multiorder. I HAVE LOST lots of inventory due to double shipping same orders. When I called PayPal they told me NOT TO USE the MULTIORDER that they are working on it, and that they cannot be held responsible. They suggested that I should contact every customer and ask them to return the product. NOT EVEN THAT they offered to do. This os a monopoly, if there were another service alternative to PayPal I will switch blindly.

For years now people all over the web have been complaining that PayPal's Multi-Order Shipping tool fails to import any order numbers, item names, and item descriptions. I have never gotten even a single order to have these fields imported. I called PayPal and they wasted a lot of my time trying to tell me it was the fault of my site's purchase button (which was made by their site and copied and pasted).

However (just like everyone else who points this out in their complaint), my order #s and item names and descriptions were all making it straight into PayPal's system, and the problem is the moment of trying to import them into Multi-Order Shipping. Their tech support guy argued with me until he finally just said, ''that app was not made by us and we have no control over it.'' Gimme a break. I know (I've searched it out) that people have been complaining about this for at least two years. People are starting to pay for solutions with business being taken away from PayPal. When will they wise up and fix this issue? It's the most basic functionality that any tool like this should have.

Problem with Paypal Multi-Order Shipping

by: The Old Wolf

Wed Mar 17 00:10:04 2010

Just addding my two penn'orth to the post by AuthorStock.com. I've been complaining to PayPal for years about the Multi-Order Shipping label problem. It's plain they have no intention of fixing this. I've even tried writing hardcopy letters to PayPal Corporate, and three times my letters have come back "addressee unknown", even though I'm writing to addresses provided me by PayPal support representatives. I continue to use PayPal because it's convenient and meets my business needs at this point, but in so many ways it bites the wax tadpole...

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